Friday, May 31, 2013

Self Portrait sewing

As part of our last assignment, we had to elect to work on a portrait, a landscape or a still life.  I thought I would challenge myself with the portrait - and it was definitely a challenge!!
I tried drawing and collaging an image but wasn't particularly happy with what I had come up with.  Nothing looked particularly human, let alone like me.
So I tried a different approach.
I started by taking photo of myself, using the computer.  This was a 2.00am, when I couldn't sleep - I thought I might as well get up and be doing something.  I got good shadows as I hadn't turned on many lights.
Then I tried some effects in the photo programme but they weren't particularly great.  So I exported them to photoshop and played around a bit more, trying to get some value areas to work with.

I then used this to play around with the first part of our assignment which was to paint Vliesofix and iron it onto fabric as a background.        
                                                
I painted the Vliesofix according to the areas of darkness, etc.  I used fabric paints - I had tried some old, very old, silk paints but they tend to stay on the backing paper more than the gluey part.  Fabric paint works much better.
It is reversed because I traced it. It was relatively dark when wet but dried much lighter.

Then I used Photoshop to draw around the photo and get a line drawing.
I traced that onto the backing paper and sewed it.


One has just machine embroidery thread, the other has Australian Tapestry Workshop wool in the bobbin.  I prefer the sewing thread one, it is more subtle.
A friend saw the finished piece and thought it looked like I have the evil eye - such is life when you don't like drawing.

4 comments:

Michelle said...

Haa, I think it looks great!! And I hear ya - I *hate* drawing, and use Photoshop a lot to manipulate pictures for weaving :)

Mary said...

Michelle, I love Photoshop! It lets me do things I could never have even thought of by myself. I don't use it that often, and tend to use the same sorts of effects, so I often have to relearn how to do things - but I still LOVE it.

Misha said...

Not the "evil eye" but "power woman"!

Mary said...

Haha, Misha. I don't feel particularly powerful when it comes to drawing!